Yellow, Bursting Giddy

Arty Hitchens is a mean old bastard with a cattle farm that backs up to the Glen Oak Preserve. He served in Vietnam and makes sure you know it from his bumper stickers and drunken rants on Old MainStreet.

“Them anti-war fucks.”

“Them counterculture revolutionaries.”

“Them dirty fucking hippies.”

“Them spoiled rotten millennials.”

Is how it always starts. He is a good ol’ boy. He loves his country, his mama, and Jesus Christ. And he and I are the best of enemies.

My parents bought a place in the new development that went up behind the Glen Oaks Preserve about seven years ago. That Preserve is my backyard, and I’ve walked every inch of those woods. Three years ago, I got myself lost somehow, went through one too many fairy doors I suppose, and ended up at the edge of his property. A narrow dirt road squeezed between the preserve’s fence and his own cattle fence. At least fifty posted signs reading, “Private Property,” “No Trespassing,” and “This property is protected by the good lord and a gun.” But I didn’t listen, and I didn’t care too much about the pockmarks in the fence posts and the trees that I would later learn were from bullets.

Fuck, instead I saw why the woods had gotten me lost. The field was loaded with mushrooms, and Sara Clarkson’s brother had gone on and on about going out to a music festival that summer and having some. So I picked myself a shirt full and let the fairies lead me back to my flat boulder in the creek bed, where I ate every goddamn one of them and watched the universe crack open like an egg and spill me out into the ocean.

And now here I am. Five years later, I’m about to go off to college, and I have a lot of picking if I want to get through well prepared. Me and Arty had been doing this dance a good long time now, and if he wanted me gone, he could have called the cops. But it’s a stand-your-ground state, and Arty has a lot of guns and not a lot of targets. I don’t mind the game. I’ve scored one and a half jars dried since the start of the season, and the bastards only grazed me once. And I’m about to clean out, drunken fuck let it slip he was heading out to a buddy’s ranch this weekend.

I came prepared, red pillowcase and knife. I hop the preserve’s fence and look up the hill to his barn to see if his truck is there like it always was. Gone. I grin, cross onto his property and pat a bullet eaten post as I climb over the fence and narrowly miss the barbed wire strung at the top. It’s snagged me twice before. The herd is up the hill in his first pasture, which means this one is empty. My luck doubles then triples as I lay eyes on my prize.

There it is. Golden caps peeking up out of the grass. I feel the psychic tug of the psilocybin. The familiar alien chattering of a greater cosmic entity waiting to press into our dimension. I’m so excited, I drop to my knees, pull up the first, and cut the dirt-covered end off. The stem bruises a dark navy, and- hell with it, I pop that boy in my mouth. I’m not tripping, not high yet, but I’m so used to the feeling of the layers of reality kaleidoscoping over each other that I already feel it humming through me. Makes me that yellow, sort-of bursting, giddy.

I harvest what's around me, about twelve good size ones. I begin my hunt for more, and it doesn't take long before I’ve gotten myself a quarter of a pillowcase. I decide I’ll fill the bag, hop the fence back to the preserve and lay under the dappled green light, and listen to Shiva sing me bird songs.

I scan the grass and lock onto a big one. I bend down, tempted to photograph it, but instead pull it up, and as I cut the steam- the hair raises on the back of my neck—the energy shifts like a storm moving over. I look up and see, ten feet from me, a hulking black bull. I stare, unsure if the bull is there or a hallucination. The edges of the creature waver, and it stands with a lowered head.

Here he is. Arty Hitchens himself. A red-blooded bull. The horns of conservative law and order- metaphor made flesh. Hooves pawing the dirt and nostrils flaring. My balancing force. Our dance begins.

I drop the mushroom slow into the pillowcase and pause. The pillowcase is red—Red like a cape. I am a matador. We have done this dance before, Arty and I. Chasing and, chasing, and chasing- round and round. I come again. Stand up to face him and take the stage. The curtains open, and the crowd cheers my name. I hold out my red matador cape, give it a wave.

“Olé!”

Arty snorts, stomps his hooves and charges for me. I turn, holding out my cape, ready for him, and- CRACK! - gunshot. A bull hits the dirt near me and makes me jump back, dropping my pillowcase.

“You dumb boy? Fucking run!” Arty calls from his gator ATV outside the fence, then levels his gun again to take a shot- CRACK! - This one kicks up dirt near me, and I look at the bull charging.

“Not a hallucination, not a hallucina- !”

I scramble, grab my pillowcase and run for the fence near the preserve. High knees. Heart pounding. I work the top of the pillowcase into a knot because I’ll be damned if this is for nothing. I make a sharp turn towards the fence and hope it's enough to slow the bull. I hear Arty cackling from his gator, hear it speeding, and- CRACK! -the bastard’s taking shots at me!

I gotta make it to the fence before Arty or- Game over. Music stopped. Curtain pulled. My heart is pounding in my chest. Fuck, I’m close, but I hear the bull snort and the hooves pounding. I reach the edge, put a hand on a post to hop over, and- I hardly even feel it- the bull’s head come up beneath me, lift me off my feet in an attempt to toss me. But my grip on the post holds long enough, works in my benefit as my back crashes hard on the dirt road outside the pasture.

The next thing I know is the barrel of a gun in my face as I come to flat on my back.

“Well, check fucking mate. Don’t you know this is a stand-your-ground state, boy?” Arty spits. “I’m in my rights to shoot you dead. Stealing off my property. Get up, boy. On your feet.”

I nod slowly, getting to my feet and putting my hands up.

“You like Georgie?” Arty nods his head toward the bull standing a few ten feet from us. “Got ‘im special for you from a buddy. I ought to toss you back in there and let him have the rest of you. One less hippie fuck ruining the country.”

I close my eyes, open them, and try to refocus on him. I’m dizzy from the trauma and the swirl of activity firing in my brain. “You gonna-” I start, then grin at him, and his brow furrows. A look of disgust. “You gonna miss me?” I ask. “When I go off? Gonna be a while before we see each other. You and I.”

He’s frowning at me, and a giggle bubbles up from inside me that turns into a laugh as I look at him. The air is golden, and the sun is beautiful, reflecting off the barrel of his gun.

“You gonna miss me Arty?” I ask.

Arty stares at me. Then he lowers his gun. “Get off my property.” He says.

I do. I scramble over the fence and begin quick into the woods before he changes his mind. Then I hear a whistle. I turn toward the sound of something crashing through the scrub and see my mushroom burdened red pillowcase on the preserve side of the fence.

Arty climbs onto his gator, gives me one last look, raises a finger gun and shoots. Bang. Then I watch him speed back up the hill.

“Checkmate,” I say.